


Protecting You

by a_real_archaeopteryx



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Supernatural - Freeform, season 4 coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:25:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8244307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_real_archaeopteryx/pseuds/a_real_archaeopteryx
Summary: just an angsty little coda set in between 4.10 (Heaven and Hell) and 4.11





	

“The _hell_ was that?”

Dean flinched hard, shifting away from other two men beside him at the bar.

“You see that, man?” The one closer to Dean, cigarette in danger of falling out of his mouth, elbowed him to get his attention before continuing gruffly. “Bullshit ref, bullshit call.”

“He jus’ mad ‘cuz he got money on this game,” The second guy drawled, leaning heavily against the bar.

Dean set his jaw against something ugly coming up front the back of his throat. “Sorry, I don’t actually follow…” -a quick check up to the small TV- “Basketball.” _Sammy played basketball when they were younger._

He was ignored after that.

After his third or fourth beer, Dean’s ‘drinking buddies’ were replaced.

“I slept like _hell_ last night…”

That ugly thing was back in his throat again. Dean slid off the barstool on to shaking legs. There was an open table at the very back of this dingy little dive bar that he should have taken in the first place. Gripping his new beer tight with both hands, he skirted around the more crowded tables to finally sink down into the darkened corner booth.

“Greene’s presentation was _torture…_ ” There was a group of suits at the table next to him.

“Pure _agony._ ”

Dean switched from one bench to the opposite, putting his back against the wall and distance between his neighbors.  If any of them shot him any looks, he deliberately didn’t notice.

Sam was… Somewhere. Doing something. _Had he not told Dean, or was he just not paying attention?_ Sober Dean would have put his money on the latter. Halfway to drunk, however, was a different story.

Dean’s little brother, who had never been quiet ever since the day he had spoken his first word ( _“Dee?”_ ), had been quiet. Sam always wanted to talk; he seemed to need to fill any thick, unpleasant air with words. Dean couldn’t go forty two minutes without Sam asking him how he felt.

It had been two days.

Two days since the fight, with Anna and Uriel and Alistair. And Ruby and Castiel, he remembered uncomfortably. Ruby hadn’t redeemed herself, even though Sam chalked up the grand plan to her.

Two days since Dean had leaned back against the Impala, telling Sam about Hell.

Two days since Dean had exploded on Sam later in the motel room, slamming the bathroom door so hard that three of the tacky picture frames had fallen off the wall.

Two days since Dean had scrubbed himself raw in water almost too hot to stand. Two days since he had come out of the shower to find out that Sam had gone and rented the room next to him. Two days since he’d cut his foot on a shard of glass hidden in the carpet, two days since he’d drank his way through the entire mini bar and still couldn’t sleep well.

Two nights that he’d woken up in cold sweat only to find the twin bed next to his empty still.

His dive bar wasn’t more than a block from the hotel, but the walk back seemed to take forever. His dragging feet had little to do with the alcohol, and he wasn’t sure if he was grateful or not that the few people he came across cleared a path ten feet around him.

The light was out in Number 5, Sam’s room.

 

* * *

 

 

One hundred and thirty-three minutes, going by the clock on the cable box. Barely two hours he’d been asleep. Did nightmares about Hell work in the same way time in Hell did? If a month was ten years, a two hour nightmare must be about…

The ugly thing, with the claws that ripped at his tongue and the spines that carved up his lungs was back. Dean sat up quickly, whipping out of habit to check the bed usually occupied by Sam. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted it to be empty or not.

He rubbed at his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees and bowing forward to keep his face down. The lights were on; had he not turned them off?

_Had he even turned them on?_

“I, um,” A raspy voice spoke from across the room. “Hello, Dean.”

_Castiel._

“Castiel,” Dean growled, snapping his back straight. “How long have you been there?”

“I, uhh, do not tell time the way hum-“ Castiel stammered, looking down at his feet.

“Just get the hell out of here.” Dean considered screaming, considered getting up out of bed to shake Castiel by the collar of his stupid trench coat. If he could trust his legs, he might have. But then Dean shivered, and in a second it was dark again and he was back.

_Every one of his bones was inverted, shredding through his skin like jagged rocks. Would anything happen if he tried to scream? Blood or bile ran down his chin and neck, but the only sound was a thick gurgle._

_There was screaming though, someone screaming…and suddenly the blood splattering his chest and soaking his clothes wasn’t his. The smoke and ashes he was choking on seemed slightly preferable to his own teeth._

“Dean!” Castiel’s voice was sharp, like a command. Dean blinked and he was in bed again, clutching the sheets so hard his fingernails were cutting in to his palms through the fabric. Castiel’s face came in to focus slowly. He was leaning over the bed now. “Dean.”

“Personal space,” Dean hissed. “Ever heard of it?” He hated Castiel, this moment. He had rescued Dean from Hell, for which he had been initially grateful. Then he was confused. Now, he was just angry. _You didn’t rescue me from Hell if I go back every time I close my eyes!_

“No.” Castiel said simply. His face was scrunched up but the expression was hard to read. It brought up just about every synonym for _pity_ that Dean knew off the top of his head.

Dean dragged himself up in bed to reach the water he had apparently put on his nightstand. He cursed as he sloshed about half of it down his shirt trying to take a drink. He’d managed to twist the sheets thoroughly around himself during his nightmare. “Personal space means to get away from me!”

“Dean, you’re in pain, I know-”

“You _know?”_ Dean crushed the empty plastic cup in his hands, glaring up at Castiel still leaning over him. “You don’t know about _pain._ ”

“Dean-”

“Anna, Anna knew! Anna knew about pain, and look what you did to her!” Dean’s lips stung at the memory of hers against them.

Castiel wavered slightly; Dean could see him sway on his feet. He looked angry.

“Your friend knows all about pain- _causing it,”_ Dean raged on, knots in his stomach clenching up as knots in his shoulders uncoiled. “Do you know about that too?” There were tears now, hot on his cheeks. He gulped for air in spite of himself. His lungs were burning. _Was he even here? Did his lungs burn like this in- Did he even breathe there?_ “Or do you not know _anything?”_

It was a while before Castiel spoke. “I know about Hell.”

Whatever Dean was expecting, it wasn’t that.

“Many of my host died, Dean.”

“I didn’t ask for that,” Dean snapped.  Castiel looked at him, blinking slowly, as if to say it didn’t matter.

“We knew what the cost would be. We were prepared to pay it.”

“Buncha angels, sacrificing themselves for me?” Dean scoffed. All he got was a damn blink again. If Castiel could be killed, Dean would have done it just for that. “What about since then, huh? Why pull me out just to let me be attacked again? The Witnesses, demons, dirty witches. Is that a price you’re prepared to pay also?”

“I know about Hell,” Castiel repeated. His tone had lost its edge; he sounded tired.

Dean forced himself to breathe, to tear his eyes away from Castiel’s and stretch his cramped fingers. He was tired of this argument now. Tired of everything. He couldn’t see the clock on the cable box from around Castiel. “Personal space means to get away from me,” He grumbled again.

Castiel straightened up but didn’t step back. Dean ran a hand over his face, rubbing at his temples with the tips of his thumbs.

“I know your soul.”

It was a whisper, almost, but it felt like ice when it broke against Dean’s skin.

He had tried so hard not to think about souls. Not his own, bought and sold and ripped from his body. Not the souls he’d… Dean scratched through his hair. _Stop._

 Dean sighed. “I’m an old man now,” he found himself saying. “Twenty-nine years old. Forty in Hell. On my next birthday, do I turn thirty or eighty?” The realization hit him yesterday morning when he was brushing his teeth. “I’ve spent more of my life in- in the Pit than out of it.”

Castiel nodded. Dean waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.

“I just hate-” Dean could hear the whine in his voice but didn’t care enough to take it out. “Sam tiptoes around me, wants to _talk_ about _feelings…_ like he has anything to say. He’s been back with that bitch since the night they put me in the ground, I bet. Probably with her now,” Dean growled, glaring hard at the opposite wall between his room and Sam’s.

Castiel nodded again, his arms held down unnaturally still against his sides. _His vessel’s_ sides. Dean had been under the impression that angelic possession must be better than demonic, but now he wasn’t so sure. Not after Uriel. He quickly did a full check-up of Castiel’s body. The man didn’t look unhealthy. _But what do I know?_

“I don’t even know what my own problem is,” Dean said. “I’m out, right? This is real?” He swept his hand across his motel room.

“Yes,” Castiel said.

“Well this sucks!” Dean shut his eyes hard. The motel room was trashed. Broken lamps he couldn’t remember throwing. Two days’ worth of empty minibottles and a fifth of cheap whiskey by the sink, now almost three-quarters gone. Tissues and clothes and screwed up balls of paper had collected in the corners of the room, with several fast food bags and boxes and receipts still pushed off to one side of the little folding table. The broken tacky artwork was still on the ground, the bits of glass still poking up through the fibers of the carpet.

“Do you wish to not be here?” Castiel asked seriously.

“Yes,” Dean groaned, falling back against the pillows. “Turn off the light!”

The room went dark instantly. Dean remembered the way the broken lights flashed and sparked in the barn.

“Where do you want to be?” If Dean didn’t know better, he’d say that Castiel’s voice sounded almost pleading. If Dean didn’t know that angels didn’t have feeling, or empathy, or…

“Back asleep.”

“You have dreams. They seem to be overall unpleasant.”

Dean opened one eye to look at the angel. He still hadn’t stepped back from the foot of the bed. “Are you just going to stare at me like that?”

“I am protecting you.”

Dean snorted. “From what? Thanks for protecting me here,” He held up his foot to show Castiel the cut on his heel. “And from being alo-” Dean hiccupped, cutting himself off. Castiel tilted his head, raising an eyebrow.   “Uh, I just…forget about it.”

“The angels…” Castiel began slowly, pacing from the end of Dean’s bed to the end of what used to be Sam’s. “We were charged with your care. Our Father’s greatest creation, _humanity.”_ Castiel said the last word like he was savoring it. “For millennia I have done so. I have watched humans love and hurt and live and die. I might not feel the sentiments myself, but I do know them.”

Dean stared at him candidly. “‘Might not? _’_ ” Castiel stopped pacing, eyes rising first to meet Dean’s own before quickly dropping his gaze to the carpet. “You, uhh. You gonna be ok, buddy?”

In probably the most human act of his life, Castiel threw himself on the bed next to Dean. “I laid siege to Hell. I made it the farthest of my host…I made it to you. I cannot compare my plight to yours, but I do know Hell.”

Dean tried to shift away from Castiel on the bed, but the weight on the sheets locked him in place. If anything, he ended up falling in closer. “So, our lives both suck ass. Glad we cleared that up,” Dean grumbled. Castiel turned his head sideways to look at him as he scrubbed his eyes with his knuckles again uncomfortably. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the nerdy angel was just about the last thing Dean had wanted, but…he rolled his eyes and let his head drop back against the headboard.

It wasn’t like the warmth wasn’t comforting.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean woke up slowly, blinking away the blurry edges at the corners of his vision. Just as he was aware of something _-someone?-_ in the bed next to him, there was a sound almost like the flapping of wings and the pressure at his side was gone. He fell over sideways, throwing out a cramped arm just in time to keep his head from coming in to contact with the nightstand. It took a few seconds to get a bearing on his surroundings, to stretch out his aching fingers.

The bed on the side he had fallen to was still warm.

“Castiel?” He croaked, voice still hoarse from sleep. The water cup he was positive he had drained and crushed last night was back on the nightstand, full. The water was also cold, and as he lifted the cup to take a drink he took in the rest of the room: no broken glass, the trash from the table and the evidence of his binge drinking gone.  It was also nearly noon, making it the longest he had slept in since…ever, and the first time in a long time he hadn’t been woken by another nightmare. Another stretch and cautious walk to the bathroom proved the cut on his foot to be completely healed over.

“Cas.”


End file.
